Transcript

00:00:01

>> There's a foul smell coming from the biblical Kidron Valley in the West Bank. It's so bad that King David and Jesus was said to have walked it would now need to take a detour to reach Jerusalem. For decades, a culture of the country's sewage has been flowing openly into Kidron, meandering down the city's foothills and even reaching the Dead Sea, causing an ecological disaster as well as a political one, as the sewage stream also runs into Palestinian territory.

00:00:35

Meaning a solution has taken decades to coordinate, since peace talks between the two sides are at an impasse. Reuters is there.>> Apparently solution has been reached between Israeli and Palestinian sides that a pipe will be built and collect this sewage, right now it flows all the way down to the direction of the Dead Sea sometimes even reaching the Dead Sea itself to this pipe will collect it all and bring it to a place where it can be treated.

00:01:01

And hopefully, we will see this being promoted in the next couple months.>> But until that happens, about 12 million cubic meters of sewage will continue to run through the valley each year. Affecting plants that should be grown in dry desert conditions, animals that drink the sewage water, and humans who are also at risk from contaminated ground water.

00:01:27

The Palestinian water authority insists it's working separately from Israel to fix the problem. And since similar plans to clean up the sewage in the past never gained traction, there's skepticism that the new agreement to clean up the biblical land will fall flat.